Tablet NAND Flash to grow fivefold in 2011

Tablet tide pushing NAND growth

Updates to this story

Use of NAND Flash memory in tablet computers is expected to increase nearly fivefold this year, according to a report by IHS iSuppli.

Current consumption of NAND Flash in tablets for 2010 was at 476.8 million gigabytes, but that figure is set to grow a whopping 382.4 percent to 2.3 billion gigabytes in 2011, a 4.8 times increase.

That figure will increase even further over the next few years, reaching 12.3 billion gigabytes by 2014 as the tablet craze continues to drive high demand for NAND.

The market share of NAND Flash used for tablets will more than double to 11.8 percent this year, compared to 4.3 percent last year. That's expected to increase further to 16 percent by 2014.

The average memory density will be around 27.1 gigabytes for non-Apple tablets and 41.5 gigabytes for the iPad.

Windows-based models, which are more like the old form of tablet before Apple's consumer success, will come with between 32GB and 64GB of SSD storage, but IHS iSuppli believes that there is more value to be found in the Apple and Android models, which have lower density requirements for their tablets.